Tis Better to Have Loved and Lost
by parttimeficwriter
Summary: Harry does the untinkable and retires. Set after 9.1 and spirals off into my own au from there. Ruth/Harry.
1. Chapter 1

**The idea for this fic started way back in 9.1 and has been living in my head since then. It has taken me until now to find the time to keep chipping away and writing it as and when I get ten minutes. It's not beta'd and is probably riddled with mistakes for which I apologise profusely. **

**I don't own Spooks or Harry and do I own the title.  
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**For the angsty one because she has no luck with phones ;-)

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He is up on the roof when she finds him. A gust of wind reminds her of how high up they are and she's grateful she put a coat on before coming to find him.

"Hello, Ruth," he greets her as she crosses over to where he is leaning against the barrier. His gaze never shifts from the London skyline but she knows better than to ask how he knew it was her.

"Beth will be starting her training tomorrow, Harry. I thought you'd like to know."

"Thanks."

She hesitates, wondering if he will look at her and when he doesn't she feels compelled to stay longer. To ease his burden somehow, even though she knows she is the main cause of his frustration at the moment. "Are you ok?"

"I honestly don't know," he mutters, relying on the wind to snatch his words away. He doesn't count on the fact that she is watching his mouth move and sees what he has let slip.

"You don't know?" The worry in her voice is unbearable to him and he finds himself suddenly becoming angry with her for caring. He bites down on his anger and turns to face her instead. "I'm fine, Ruth," he replies, brusquely and she winces from the harshness of his tone. "I was just thinking that I will miss the view from up here."

"Miss the-"she echoes, blankly, before he cuts her off.

"When I retire."

"Retire?"

"Yes. I'm announcing it in the morning but I thought you should know."

"Harry," she says, shocked, "this is crazy. We can still work together."

"Not everything is about you, Ruth!" he shouts, "Do try and give me some credit, I'm not prone to rash emotional decisions."

"Which is exactly the reason why we're so many years down the line and have ended up like this!" she retorts, anger and shame warring for equal attention.

"At least I tried, Ruth. You gave in at the first hurdle," he says, sadly.

"I didn't come up here to argue with you, Harry."

"Then don't argue with me," he implores, "be happy for me. Tell me it's high time I got myself a life and that one day, you'd like to come and share it with me."

She shakes her head and backs away from him slightly. "I can't, Harry. I can't promise you that."

"I know."

She takes a deep shuddering breath and tries not to cry as she whispers, "I wish I could."

She turns abruptly and races for the stairwell aware of his eyes following her as she walks away from him. Again.

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"This is it then?" she asks, hovering in the doorway of his office. They have barely spoken since their altercation on the roof ten days earlier. She knows, mainly through Tariq, that he intends to move up north and while his declining years away in a farm house not far from Whitby and the North Yorkshire Moors. She doesn't like to admit it to herself but she can picture him there reading by the fire, taking long walks in the countryside with Scarlet.

"So it would seem." He's been waiting for this, for her to come to him. For their goodbye. His power in this building is all but gone, his meagre box of personal belongings is sitting at the far end of his desk hinting at his desertion but it's not until she arrives that it really sinks in. That this is the end.

"And if I asked you not to go?"

He looks at her then, her face is pale and drawn and she's clutching the door handle so tightly that her knuckles have turned white. "We both know you're not so cruel as to make me stay, Ruth."

"That's not what I asked." Her voice is harsh, the words sharper than intended fuelled by her hurt and her uncertainty. He has been her constant, the one she has come to rely on being there, silently lending her strength when she needed it most and the idea that she might never have that again has left her floundering.

"I know," he replies, evenly, using every ounce of control he has to keep his distance. He doesn't want to make this any harder than it has to be, for either of them.

"I'm not ready for this to end," she whispers, eventually, and it's almost his undoing. He wonders how it has come to this, how two people who so obviously feel deeply for each other can be pulled so far apart.

He takes a step towards her, slowly, almost as if he's frightened she will run away at the first sign of danger. "It doesn't have to, Ruth, but it can't be here, I can't live this half-life anymore," he says, begging her to understand that he's leaving the service, not her, "I want more than death and destruction. I don't want to be the man who makes those impossible decisions anymore."

"What if you're the only one that can?"

He almost smiles at her relentlessness but catches himself at the last moment. "We both know that's not true," he chides, softly, before striving for a lighter note, "There are plenty of people who could replace me, the service is full of ruthless bastards."

"And not one of them is like you!" she declares, loudly, pushing herself away from the doorway and finally crossing the threshold to his office.

"Thank you."

"We need you, Harry," she carries on, ignoring the impossibly soft gaze that has been cast upon her since her short outburst, "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"More than you think." Harry sighs, heavily, wishing she would let it be but feeling a secret thrill in the knowledge that she is only ever so dogged about the things she truly cares about.

"Then why won't you-"

"Because I don't want to end my days in this office, or to have only 6 colleagues at my funeral," he shouts, frustrated at going round in circles. "I'm getting out whilst I still have the chance, Ruth and so should you!" He closes the gap between them, stopping just short of their chests touching and holds her gaze as his fingertips graze lightly against her hand, "I don't want it to destroy you, Ruth," he murmurs, and there is so much pain and love in his eyes that she has to close her eyes against it.

"I'm not leaving," she says, quietly, but with conviction and backs away from him, only daring to look at him again when she reaches the doorway, "I know where my loyalties lie even if you don't."

He swallows down his hurt and anger that she, of all people, could say that to him and simply nods in her direction before turning to pick up the half empty cardboard box on his desk.

"If you ever need anything," he says, earnestly, as he reaches her but the shake of her head and the tears swimming in her eyes are enough to stop him from saying anymore. She watches, mutely, as he strides across the Grid for the last time and greets the security officer who has been waiting patiently to escort him from the building. He turns and gives her a last, lingering look before entering the pods and walking away from her.

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**Thank you for reading. Please leave a review.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Happy Halloween! I have no time to write a Halloween fic unfortunately so I hope this will do as a substitute. **

**Big thank you to Em for the beta.

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_**Four months later.**_

She arrives one Thursday morning unannounced but not unwelcome. He's out in the yard, sanding the paint down on the battered boat he has been restoring for the past few months, when he looks up to find her standing at the gate post. He has imagined this moment a thousand times but nothing prepares him for the reality of seeing her standing there, the crisp morning breeze ruffling her hair as she walks across the yard. It takes him a moment to realise that he should move - should do something, say something, welcome her perhaps - but his mouth has become impossibly dry and his ability to function normally appears to have disappeared all of a sudden.

"Hello, Harry," she says, quietly, as she makes her way across the yard.

"Hello, Ruth," he replies, with a small, warm smile. He rests the sanding block on the edge of his boat and realises, as he does so, that his hands are trembling. "Tea?" he asks, feeling absurd, and is relieved when she gives a small nod.

He leads the way, ushering her into his small, warm kitchen and busies himself with making the tea. He can see her out of the corner of his eye as he fills the kettle and takes some comfort in the fact that she looks as nervous as he feels. There is so much between them and so much to discuss and yet he can't bring himself to voice any of it in case she turns and heads back to London. Back to a life without him.

"Boats," she murmurs, shaking her head slightly as she realises the sight of him happily working away has thrown her slightly off kilter. "Not quite what I imagined you doing."

The tilt of his head, as he turns to face her, is so familiar to her that she has to swallow hard against the lump that unexpectedly forms in her throat. Somehow the fact that she's missed it, missed_ him_, makes her anger resurface and she wonders how it is possible to feel so many conflicting emotions for one person.

"What did you imagine me to be doing?" he asks, leaning back against the kitchen counter, arms folded against his chest, "Writing my memoirs? Losing the will to live?"

"No," she pauses for a fraction of a second too long and then sighs heavily. "I don't know," she admits. "Maybe."

"I was ready to leave, Ruth. My timing might have been off with some things, but not with that. It was the right thing to do. I needed to move on."

"I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"How you could just give up and walk away so easily."

"Is that what you honestly think? That it was easy?" There is an undercurrent of hurt and anger as he speaks, which reflects her own feelings. Her silence gives him all the answer he needs and he shakes his head at her. "Sometimes I think that you don't know me at all."

"I know the feeling" she mutters, darkly.

"What is it you want, Ruth?" he growls, losing patience with her, "To know that out of all the decisions I've had to make in my life that leaving London, leaving _you_, is the hardest thing I've ever had to do? That moving on isn't all it's cracked up to be when a part of you belongs so completely to someone else that you can't remember what is to feel whole?" She looks stunned and a part of him takes perverse pleasure in twisting the knife. "Or perhaps, worst of all, is the knowledge that you mean more to me than I must have ever meant to you because no matter what I do you are imprinted on every part of me!"

Belatedly, he realises he should have expected the slap that lands across his cheek as she surges across the kitchen towards him. "Don't you dare, Harry," she spits, glaring daggers at him, hurt and anger lancing through her at the injustice of his words. "Don't you bloody dare tell me that my love for you isn't the same as yours is for me. I gave up everything for you." She emphasises her words with a poke of her finger to his chest. "_Everything_. My house, my job, my family, my friends, my pets, my reputation and my identity. I gave it all up in the blink of an eye to save you, and everything you, _we_, believed in because I loved you so damned much."

"Then how the hell could you move on so quickly?" he roars, catching her hand in his to stop her from slapping him again. He's finally asked the question that he so desperately needs to know the answer to. The question he fears he has no right to ask, never mind get a response to. "What did he do, Ruth? To catch your attention?" he asks, voice breaking with emotion. "How did he get to love you when all you've ever done is kept me at arm's length?"

He hears her sharp intake of breath and fights against the urge to let go of her and turn away when his heart is so open, so vulnerable in this moment. There's no going back from this conversation. It's make or break time; he knows it and, from the look in her eyes, she does too.

"It's because he wasn't you, that he got to love me," she whispers, eventually, confusing him even more.

"Meaning what exactly?" he asks, harshly, fully aware that his legs are trembling as he awaits her answer.

"George couldn't hurt me."

"And I can," he states, sadly, dropping her hands and taking a step back from her as understanding dawns on him.

"You have the power to hurt me so much, Harry," she explains, brokenly, fingers twisting together nervously.

"I would never-"

"Yes, you will," she says, matter of fact, cutting off his automatic denial. "You already have, Harry. More than once." Her eyes flick to his and she holds his gaze. "Just like I've done to you."

He watches her as she watches him. Her breathing is shallow, the stress and the strain of their conversation so easy to read on her face and yet, as he gazes, there is something else he sees. A flicker in her eyes that gives him hope. And courage.

"You're right," he agrees, "I can't promise never to hurt you, Ruth." He takes a step closer to her, until he is almost pressed against her body, and a different kind of emotion is peaked as he realises that she hasn't moved away. "I can promise never to do it intentionally," he whispers, pressing his advantage home until her back is against the kitchen wall and he is millimetres from her. "And I can promise to make it up to you," he leans in and can feel her warm, steady breath across his lips as he closes the final distance between them. "when I do."

And then he's kissing her, and all she knows is the feel of his soft, warm mouth against hers and the feel of his hands at her waist as he holds her firmly against the wall.

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**There is more to come...as soon as I get chance to write it!  
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** Please review. **


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